


I'm Not Lonely, Sherlock

by doctorsdaughter



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coffee, George Lestrade - Freeform, M/M, Mycroft works with Lestrade, Not Beta Read, Post-Reichenbach, Sarcasm, gavin lestrade, gregory lestrade - Freeform, no donovan, not a coffee shop au, why am I doing this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 12:43:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3134939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorsdaughter/pseuds/doctorsdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft goes to work with Lestrade, much to Mycroft's dismay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Lonely, Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Up_A_Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Up_A_Sun/gifts).



> I wrote a thing, and it was gonna be super long so I have to break it into chapters. Oops. (Also I'm sorry if I fucked up the address. British addresses confuse me.)

It had been two excruciating years. Mycroft hated talking to people, he could figure out in minutes what would take others days or months. Languages were his forte. He had learned every language his college had to offer in his first year. He would take end of term exams a month into the lessons.

So Mycroft really had no intentions of talking or, hell, form a relationship with any of Sherlock’s people. No matter how many times they left messages with Anthea or god forbid, passed him on the street near where Sherlock had lived. However, he was surprised to find out that the person he kept running into wasn’t John Watson or Mrs. Hudson.

No, the person he kept running into, no matter how many different cafes he frequented, or how many different ways he walked to his favorite cafe, the one that always had the vanilla bean scones, was Detective Inspector Lestrade. It was actually beginning to verge on annoying. He would walk into a cafe that was easily twenty minutes out of his way, and there was DI Lestrade, a coffee set on the table, and crumbs of a sugar doughnut stuck to the whisps of hair on his face as he read the paper. Fortunately for Mycroft, he was not held up on details of how Sherlock had done it (how would he explain the 13 Japanese wrestlers?), he just continued on with his day with a curt nod to Mycroft.

Which made him wonder, why did he keep running into this man? It obviously wasn't intentional.

One day after an excruciatingly long day at the office and once again running into DI Lestrade (did that man only drink coffee or did he actually work as well?), Mycroft was sitting in his office, leaning back as far as his chair would allow him to, rapping his fingers on his desk.

If he asked Anthea to check up on this man, it would seem he cared. If he left it alone and continued to run into him, it would continue to be incredibly annoying. So what was he to do? At least if he had this man’s schedule, he could make it so that they never ran into each other. It was a bit of an overexaggeration, but every time he ran into DI Lestrade, he was reminded of Sherlock. Even though he knew the truth, it was boring not to have someone to check up on. No one to worry about threatening the British Empire because the papers wouldn’t change the answer of the crosswords or because John was out of town. So while he didn’t miss his brother. He didn’t! The lack of events to excite him made his life, well, as boring as it had ever been. He didn’t like that at all.

He took out his phone and texted Anthea. He realized texting was an incredibly lazy thing to do when his desk sat less than five feet from her, but nonetheless, he’d walked the entirety of London today trying to find a place to have a damn cup of tea without noticing the Detective Inspector.

 **To Anthea:** I need you to get me all of the information you can on Detective Inspector Lestrade. Old friend of Sherlock’s. Priority one. - MH

 **To Mycroft:** Don’t you think the profile on the Al-Queda member should be priority one? - A

He hated when she got sarcastic with him. Especially when she was right.

 **To Anthea:** Fine. Priority Two. I want them both on my desk before you leave tonight. - MH

No answer meant that she was busy, no doubt with her assignments. This left him to run his hands through his unfortunately thinning hair, and open the secret files on his desk that allowed him to track Sherlock. _Serbia_. What the hell was he doing in Serbia? He’d visited most of Europe and Asia in the last two years. Mycroft’s hand covered his mouth as he thought. He had to be close to being done. And then they would have to explain to everyone about what happened.

While Sherlock might be expecting parties in his honour when he returned, Mycroft was a little more realistic. He had a Detective, a former war doctor, a forensic specialist, and the wife of a major drug cartel to tell. If he was still alive by the end of telling everyone, he should count himself lucky.

\--

It was the end of the day when Anthea walked in with two filing envelopes for him, both marked classified in a huge stamp. One had the code for the Al-Queda suspect, and one just said G. Lestrade on the tab at the top of the envelope. Anthea silently put them on the table, and picked up his tea to refresh it and bring him biscuits, a meal that was often his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

He nodded a thank you to Anthea, and set down the Al-Queda folder and opened the second one. It was only a few pages long, and which Mycroft appreciated, meaning he had no prior bad acts that meant prison sentences.

 **Name:** Gregory Lestrade  
 **Age:** 45  
 **Occupation:** Detective Inspector, New Scotland Yard  
 **Nationality:** British  
 **Marriage Status:** Divorced (wife had affair with PE teacher)  
 **Address:**  678 Augustus Rd Wembley, Middlesex London HA9 9EY  
 **Next-Of-Kin:** Annabelle Lestrade (Daughter, 15)  
 **Sexuality:** heterosexual, one time in college engaged in homosexual acts  
 **Relationship to Sherlock:** SH helped him with cases which could not be solved. Most cases.  
 **Other:** trying to quit smoking, failed multiple times, has given up many jobs in America, frequently goes to cafes near his cases.  
 **Crimes:**  
3 parking tickets  
2 speeding tickets  
1 for public disturbance and vandalizing car (presumably his wife’s lover)  
1 for streaking across soccer field in college (school did not press charges)

Mycroft froze as he read about Gregory Lestrade (though he could have sworn his name was Gavin) streaking across the soccer field in college. When he was in college, which would have been around the same time, that was the exact kind of thing he would have rolled his eyes at, and turned up _Carmen_ or some other opera or classical music. While Mycroft was what many people called a prick or a prude at university, Gregory would have been the cool guy, the guy who got patted on the back in the hallway.

He picked up the picture of Lestrade, and studied the picture. He had silver hair which at one point was most likely jet-black, and dark eyes. This must have been a recent picture taken from a CCTV camera, because he had the wispy hairs on face that Mycroft had seen. Despite being forty-five, he looked older, but that could be because of stress. He wore a brown jacket and a white shirt almost everyday.

There was a picture from what looked like earlier in the day as Gregory walked home from school with his daughter. There were a couple other pictures of him doing mundane things -- going to crime scenes, going to cafes, going to pick up his daughter. Mycroft noticed that he hardly smiled except when he was with his daughter. He looked annoyed at the crime scenes, sad at the cafes, but when going to the school to pick up his daughter, even through the bad quality of pictures, Mycroft could see his eyebrows crinkling.

After fifteen minutes of looking at the pictures and back at the information Anthea had gotten, which, after the overview, included police reports of all of his “crimes.” He finally opened the other (arguably more important) folder, and began to make notes. He groaned. He was going to be there all night.

\--

Mycroft wasn’t wrong when he said he’d be there all night. He’d left the office around two AM, and expected Anthea to leave around three. He went home that night straight to bed, thinking about the to do list he would have for the next day. Brief the prime minister about information he had on the suspected terrorist, get a thorough profile of John over the past two years for Sherlock, wait for the PM to say they needed his brother, learn Serbian, and ignore the man who he now knew too much about.

He was not looking forward to any of this. He collapsed into his bed, unable to put on his silk pajama set, leaving him only in his boxers, the briefcase at the foot of the bed. He didn’t bother covering up, before he knew it he was fast of sleep, dreaming of similiarities between Serbian and other Slavic languages.

\--

The next day went pretty much as planned. The PM did want Sherlock on the case, much to Mycroft’s dismay. However, something did throw a curveball into the day that he was expecting.

“Also Mycroft, there is a string of robberies happening in London. Bit below your pay grade I know --” _Much below my pay grade._ He wanted to say. “But the police aren’t getting anywhere, and I told the Detective Inspector to be expecting you. Gavin?” His secretary quickly shook her head. “Ah, right, Gregory Lestrade. He’s in charge.”

Mycroft quickly nodded a thanks, and walked briskly out, Anthea behind him. “A police job? I work for the bloody British government and I get sent to a low grade police chase because they can’t find the bloody family who robs banks?”

Anthea stayed silent, as she always did, her hands hovering over to her iPhone, waiting for her instructions to make a list. Once they were outside, Mycroft pinched the top of his nose in between his eyebrows, taking a few deep breaths. He turned and walked towards his office, opting to walk today rather than take a car.

“Alright,” he said, stopping abruptly and turning to Anthea, who always seemed to expect what he was doing. “I need a textbook on Serbian language, I need you to make an incredibly in-depth file on John Watson, on the miracle that Sherlock actually believes John has changed. I need a file on the robberies that are being taken, and send everything we have on the Al-Queda terrorist to Robert. You’re going to be on your own a lot, Anthea, but I don’t expect you to be relaxing. If I have to deal with commoners, you have to deal with British Department Heads.”

“Yes sir,” was all she said, and had he not turned his head directly when he did, he would have seen her mouth _drama queen_.

\--

“To hell with it,” Mycroft muttered to no one as he walked down the sidewalk to his favorite cafe. If he was going to be with commoners and people who would have to take minutes to get what he would figure out in seconds, by god, he was getting a scone.

He walked into the cafe, holding his briefcase a bit harder than normal. Normally Anthea did this for him, but now he was in charge of holding his briefcase and his umbrella. How did people survive with their hands so full all the time?

He stood in line, trying to read his paper (unsuccessfully). When he misjudged the line and moved forward, bumping into the person ahead of him. He groaned. A public nusance was not what he needed this morning.

“Oi, mate,” the man said, turning around. Mycroft was met face to face with exactly who he figured he’d meet at this cafe, Gregory Lestrade. The man looked annoyed, and then his face immediately softened. “Mycroft, right? Sherlock’s brother?”

_Always ‘Sherlock’s brother’._

“That would be me,” Mycroft said, forcing a grimace of a smile. Gregory laughed a little bit, and Mycroft noticed that it was a nervous tic he had most likely developed overtime, a way to compensate for how much he gets nervous, most likely, or it wouldn’t be so universally accepted.

“I was hoping we would meet under better circumstances,” Gregory said, putting his hand out for Mycroft to shake, and was only met with a helpless look on his face. Gregory looked at him with a funny look, almost pity, and helped out Lestrade by taking his umbrella from him.

“Why don’t I carry this back to your office, alright?” Gregory asked. “Your cuppa will be much warmer to the skin than this wooden hook.” Mycroft opened his mouth to disagree, but Gregory had turned around and was ordering a skinny vanilla latte and a vanilla bean scone.

“Do you want something?” Gregory turned and looked at Mycroft, “New guy always gets his first coffee on the DI.” He laughed at his own choke. Mycroft could feel his ears going red -- he’d never been offered coffee before. British Department Heads weren’t too keen on sharing their hard earned paycheck, even though it was twice what Gregory Lestrade was probably making.

“I couldn’t,” Mycroft answered.

“Nah, yes you can,” Gregory said. “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it. Come on, you’ll have to deal with the wankers who think they know everything. You’ll need a friend. And a coffee.”

Mycroft studied Gregory, and when he finally decided that Gregory was being sincere, he turned to the barista. “Cafe Latte with a double shot of espresso and…” he bit his lip, looking at Gregory, who still seemed sincere. “a vanilla scone as well.” The barista nodded, ringing up his order as Gregory clapped him on the back, as though ordering coffee was something to celebrate. He supposed having a friend was.

When they walked out of the cafe, eating their scones and drinking their coffee, Mycroft thankful that he had at least one free hand to hold his order. Gregory started talking about the case. Thankfully he knew how a Holmes worked thanks to Sherlock. He learned that the Walters family kept robbing fairly large banks throughout the Greater London area, and each time the amount that was robbed went up significantly higher.

Mycroft nodded as Gregory went through the details of each robbery, and what they had tried to do to stop them, and how they had failed each time. He let out a sigh when he had all the information. He could see why he was needed. Scotland Yard obviously needed technology they didn’t have in order to track this family of robbers. He had to admit that he felt bad for Gregory. He was doing the best he can, but he kept reassuring himself (another tell that someone kept undermining him) and Mycroft of his decisions.

Once they reached the station, Gregory showed Mycroft his office -- thank god, at least he didn’t have to work with people around -- and gestured to where he was putting his umbrella.

“There’s going to be the daily briefing in about five minutes,” Gregory said, and Mycroft could see that his demeanour changed as soon as he walked through the door. He was no longer the guy that would invite you over to watch telly or football, or buy you a cup of coffee and a scone. He was now DI Lestrade. Something about the way that he could turn that on and off intrigued Mycroft.

“I will be there and take notes,” Mycroft said. “I’ll see if I can log into my profiles and programs from these computers. If not, I have my briefcase.”

DI Lestrade, as it now seemed more fit to call him, looked impressed and a little intimidated by what Mycroft had asked. Though Sherlock would be oblivious to these reactions, Mycroft was interested in Psychology and Sociology in university, and took enough to almost major in it. That was until Mycroft realized he had no interest in people’s problems. Still, it allowed him to show people he had enough of a human side to see what Sherlock was blind to.

“I can -- show you?” Mycroft offered slowly, which seemed to calm him down. This was a big red no, and would have required a lot of red tape just to get DI Lestrade in the room, but if they were going to put him with commoners, god damn it, he was going to show them what he could do, if it could help.

“Thank you,” he said, obviously reading Mycroft’s mind about how big a deal it was to show him this program. “You have no idea how much this could help.”

Mycroft chuckled to himself, sipping on his coffee. This was much different from his office. Anthea wasn’t there, anything he wanted he would have had to get up and get. He had windows facing out to the common area so he couldn’t do anything private (ie: anything having to do with Sherlock), and he had a sinking feeling that many of these people liked to go out and eat. Together. While he’d taken akin to Gregory Lestrade, the loudness of the DSes and lower put him ill at ease. Oh well. Hopefully he could do what he needed to do and get the hell out of here and back to dealing with international issues.

Hopefully.


End file.
